Sebastian Vettel did what Sebastian Vettel did best, namely claiming pole position for a race which he requires only one point from to be crowned the youngest ever double world champion.

Elsewhere Lewis Hamilton found himself in the thick of the action as once more his qualifying was dogged by more controversy while Felipe Massa was able to out-qualify team-mate Fernando Alonso and Kamui Kobayashi sent the crowd wild as he sneaked into the top ten shoot-out.

Formula1Fancast brings you all the reaction to all the biggest talking points from qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton on his mistake that denied him the opportunity to challenge for pole: Lewis Hamilton: You could see on TV, I would have to watch replay. Jenson was in front of me, he slowed down to get his gap and I was coming to the last corner trying to make sure I had a gap between him and me. It wasn’t that big and then just was I was coming into the chicane, I looked in the mirror and saw Mark diving inside me. And then I didn’t see Michael but he came past me and we nearly crashed with me to the left. It was quite dangerous.”

McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh on Hamilton: “With Lewis it was tight, we told him not to back up and let so many cars by. Unfortunately he got hustled by at the last corner and in so doing missed out on posting a time in the last lap. Jenson is unlucky to miss pole by nine 1,000ths of a second.”

Michael Schumacher on the incident involving Hamilton: “I had Webber in front because Hamilton slowed down. I don’t know what was in front of him, if he really had to slow down that much, but it was tight for all three of us so we all had to push somehow to make it through and do another lap.

“At that moment I was set to do a lap because I didn’t know whether Kobayashi, or somebody, may go out [to set a time]. I tried my best and Lewis pushed me a little bit wide onto the grass. I made it through, but a bit of an awkward start of a qualifying lap.”

Sebastian Vettel on his 15^th front row start of the season: What a qualifying. Yesterday I went off in free practice and damaged the wing, so it wasn’t ideal in the afternoon to prepare the car for today.

“We suffered a bit this morning in particular where we were kind of coming back regarding car balance but we were too slow. We sat down after the practice session this morning and fortunately got everything together and were able to get every single bit out of the car in qualifying.”

“It was crucial, there’s not much between Jenson Button and myself. It was a tough qualifying but I enjoyed it a lot. It is a long lap, you have a mega first sector, every time it is a challenge, it’s hard to get it right. I had a bit of a wobble in the first sector but got it right in the second sector.”

Jenson Button on qualifying second: “It’s been a pretty good weekend. We all love driving round here, it’s a phenomenal track and when you’ve got a car that works it’s a great feeling. I was nine-thousandths not good enough, there you go. I felt like I got everything out of the car. Fair play to the whole team, to be able to really fight the Red Bulls around here on a circuit they have dominated on is a great job.

Paul Di Resta after qualifying in 12^th: “We struggled to get up to speed with the car and opted to go for a race set up to put us in a better position tomorrow. I think tyre wear is crucial. I’m not feeling the best at the moment but we will try to give it our best in the race tomorrow. My throat seems to have got worse so hopefully it will get better overnight. I’m struggling.”

Sebastien Buemi who didn’t go out for a second run in Q2, causing him to miss out on the final shoot-out: “I got a super lap in Q1, but I cannot be happy with Q2, because I made a mistake on the exit of Turn 9, hitting the kerb a bit too hard which sent me off into the grass, costing me around half a second. I am disappointed about that because I’ve ended up behind the Williams, when we could easily have been ahead of them.

“They don’t give out any points for qualifying, so we took the decision to save tyres for the race and we will see if that was the right choice tomorrow. Tyre degradation is quite heavy, which means that having new tyres will be important in the race.”

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